“What we are hearing is that among the 22 people killed were 12 women and two children,” UN human rights office spokesman Jeremy Laurence told a Geneva press briefing in response to a question about a strike on Aitou on Monday.

“We understand it was a four-storey residential building that was struck. With these factors in mind, we have real concerns with respect to international humanitarian law, so the laws of war, and the principles of distinction proportion and proportionality,” he said, calling for an investigation.

At the same press briefing, the UN refugee agency’s Middle East director Rema Jamous Imseis said that new Israeli evacuation orders to 20 villages in southern Lebanon meant that over a quarter of the country was now affected.

“Now we have over 25% of the country under a direct Israeli military evacuation order,” she said. “People are heeding these calls to evacuate, and they’re fleeing with almost nothing.”